What Is a Pennyweight (dwt) of Gold?
Published June 19, 2026 · updated June 19, 2026
If you’ve ever taken gold jewelry to a buyer, you may have heard them quote a price “per pennyweight” instead of per gram. A pennyweight (abbreviated dwt) is a unit of weight used mainly in the precious-metals trade. One pennyweight equals 1.55517 grams, and there are 20 pennyweights in a single troy ounce.
Knowing what a pennyweight is matters because it’s easy to confuse with a gram — and that confusion can quietly cost you money when you sell.
How a Pennyweight Relates to Other Gold Units
Gold is weighed in troy weight, not the everyday avoirdupois ounces used for groceries. The relationships you need to remember are:
- 1 troy ounce = 31.1034768 grams
- 1 troy ounce = 20 pennyweights (dwt)
- 1 pennyweight (dwt) = 1.55517 grams
- 1 gram = 0.64301 dwt
So a pennyweight is heavier than a gram. This is the key insight: if a buyer quotes you a price per dwt, that price covers more metal than a price per gram does. Comparing a “$50 per gram” offer to a “$50 per dwt” offer is not a fair comparison — the per-gram offer is worth about 55% more for the same piece.
Calculating Gold Value in Pennyweights
Melt value follows a simple formula: spot price × purity × weight. To value a piece priced in pennyweights, you work out how many troy ounces of pure gold it contains.
Say spot gold is $3,350 per troy ounce and you have a 14K ring weighing 4 pennyweights:
- 4 dwt ÷ 20 = 0.2 troy ounces total weight
- 14K purity = 58.5% gold
- 0.2 × 0.585 = 0.117 troy ounces of pure gold
- 0.117 × $3,350 = $391.95 melt value
For a faster result without the arithmetic, drop your weight and karat into our gold calculator. To see how purity changes per-unit pricing, the 14K gold price per gram page lays it out side by side.
Why Buyers Quote in Pennyweights
Pennyweights are traditional in the jewelry and pawn trade, partly because rounder numbers sound attractive. A 10-gram ring becomes roughly “6.4 dwt,” and a buyer quoting “$40 per dwt” can sound generous until you convert it. The same offer in grams would be about $62 per gram.
The fix is simple: always ask which unit a quote uses, then convert before you compare offers. Multiplying a per-dwt price by 1.55517 gives you the equivalent per-gram price. Multiplying a per-gram price by 20 gives you the per-troy-ounce price.
Pennyweights and Karat Purity
A pennyweight measures weight, not purity. Two 5-dwt items can have very different values depending on karat:
- 24K (99.9%) — nearly pure, the highest value per dwt
- 22K (91.67%) — common in South Asian jewelry
- 18K (75%) — typical for fine jewelry
- 14K (58.5%) — the most common US jewelry alloy
- 10K (41.67%) — the minimum to be sold as “gold” in the US
The lower the karat, the less pure gold is in each pennyweight — so a 10K pennyweight is worth less than half of a 24K pennyweight at the same spot price.
FAQ
Is a pennyweight the same as a gram? No. One pennyweight (dwt) equals 1.55517 grams, so a pennyweight is about 55% heavier than a gram. Never compare per-dwt and per-gram prices directly.
Why do gold buyers use pennyweights? It’s a holdover from troy-weight tradition in the jewelry trade. It can also make offers sound larger at first glance, since the same metal measures as a smaller number in dwt than in grams.
How many pennyweights are in an ounce of gold? There are 20 pennyweights in one troy ounce of gold. Since gold uses troy weight, one troy ounce equals 31.1034768 grams or 20 dwt.